Chinese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Chinese language. It's 100% free, no registration required.

This is the story named in English "The true story of Ah Q." Author Lu Xun transliterates the pronunciation of Q as Quei, and suggests that the Q could stand for 桂, or 贵, which are today pinyin Gui4. I think Lu Xun grew up speaking a Wu dialect, but I am not sure of that. Anyway I am less concerned to know how he pronounced it.

I'm from Fuzhou, everyone around says Q as how it is pronounced in English
–
user58955May 7 '14 at 20:53

@user58955 That would be a good start to an answer.
–
Stumpy Joe PeteMay 7 '14 at 20:59

Your story is true, and I was told the same story by my junior high school 语文 teacher.
–
zsf222May 8 '14 at 6:18

(As no one mentions here) I would say some people would pronounce it as "阿丘正传", and it's actually, the way following the alphabet name definition in 汉语拼音方案. Anyway, I myself would pronounce it as the name of the Latin letter with the first tone in Mandarin (and I would think the more normal "fourth tone" Latin style is also OK).
–
StanMay 8 '14 at 8:43

3 Answers
3

Generally speaking, in modern practice, Chinese speakers pronouce mixed English letters as is. for example:

5A级景区

is pronouced as "wu3 ei1 ji2 jing3 qu1"

阿Q正传 is somehow different, because the author had explicitely mentioned in this novelette that Q should be pronounced as 桂 or 贵. (Note that back in the era of this novelette Chinese people were just starting to get familiar with western cultures so there was no established rules as how to incorporate English letter pronouciations in Chinese context.)

What I have experienced, when famous theatre companies present the play of 阿Q正传, they were always faithful to the original novelette and pronouced "gui4" in the play. However in daily speech, people sometimes just follow common practice and forget that this should be a special case.

It reminds me the pronunciation of 恪 in the name 陈寅恪. There're always controversies how this kind of special name should be pronounced. IMO, as there's actually no standard (or I miss it?), it doesn't matter for us to freely choose an acceptable one.
–
StanMay 8 '14 at 8:26

1

@Stan your example reminds me "万俟卨"... I had so much pain to memorize the pronounciation of that name! The pronouciation of people's names are full of unique variations which you just can't reproduce with modern tones. But that was off topic... :P
–
RephinxMay 8 '14 at 10:59

1

现代汉语词典 gives the pinyin for 阿Q as a1 qiu1 or a1 kiu1 . What I hear is always the latter one.
–
fefeMay 9 '14 at 5:57